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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Windows 10 will be free, Holographic Glasses incredible.

I watched the recent Windows 10 conference and demonstration...and it kicked Apple's ass. What is it about Apple that makes everyone think they're the technology innovators? They're all about "design," but that's it.

The Windows 10 upgrade is free for the first year. Free...even for Windows 7 diehards (although not for 7.5 phones, like mine). It's also one full system that connects all your devices with the same features. It also look's like Windows OneDrive is something I'm going to have to start using as well.

But the following HoloLens headgear demonstration was just too good to pass up. Edited for length, check out the future of wearable 3D computers:

PCGamer: Microsoft’s HoloLens doesn’t really fit any of those molds. What Microsoft calls holograms, most of us have been calling augmented reality for years—overlaying digital images over our view of the real world. After trying on Microsoft’s headset, I came away impressed with the technology—especially if their final hardware is actually able to integrate all of the HoloLens’ necessary battery and processing power into a wire-free device.

Where Google Glass gives you a small heads-up display, HoloLens is a much more powerful integrated system, capable of running real applications beyond a heads-up display of the weather or your calendar. I talked to a Microsoft engineer on Skype, who showed up in my augmented reality FOV as a floating video feed. I could pin that window anywhere in space and look back at it to see her talk. Meanwhile, she could see everything I was looking at, and talked me through the process of installing a light switch. She could also draw things on her Surface tablet screen and have them appear in front of my eyes, which she did multiple times to point to a certain tool or a wire I needed to connect. It’s by far the best AR headset I’ve ever seen, but the view is disappointingly limited.

Wired: Another scenario lands me on a virtual Mars-scape. With a quick upward gesture, I toggle from computer screens that monitor the Curiosity rover’s progress across the planet’s surface to the virtual experience of being on the planet. The ground is a parched, dusty sandstone, and so realistic that as I take a step, my legs begin to quiver. They don’t trust what my eyes are showing them. Behind me, the rover towers seven feet tall, its metal arm reaching out from its body like a tentacle. The sun shines brightly over the rover, creating short black shadows on the ground beneath its legs.